The environmental law requires compliance with standards for the proper disposal of solid waste of all classes in a way to avoid the eminent environmental collapse in case severe measures are not taken and implemented.
In this context, various directions and strands are envisioned, with emphasis on landfills, composting and incineration more relevant with this patent application.
Basically, incineration is based on the burning of waste/residue being a technique acceptable up to a certain point, but it demands high investments explained by the need for strict control of the emission of polluting gases generated by burning, mainly when it comes to toxic waste. A priori, incinerators do not solve the problem, only converting toxic waste to other forms, some of them with greater toxicity than the original material.
The current state of the art anticipates some patent documents that deal with the treatment of solid waste, such as IP 0104060-0 “Process of Incineration of Emission Products from the Production of Industrial Waste’. It provides a novel process for controlling the temperature of incineration in response to changes in the emission products and waste streams, results in excellent and reliable control of the incineration process and resulting incineration emissions. As a result, the capital and operation costs are significantly reduced.
IP 0601690-1 “Integrated System for Treatment and Disposal of Solid Wastes” which aims to integrate their collection, treatment and disposal processes; eliminate the generation of environmental liabilities; increasing efficiency and effectiveness and the amount of re-usable products during and after the disposal route. It involves receiving the waste at the treatment plant; pre-selecting said waste; crushing the organic material; accelerated composting; incineration; treatment of gas, ash and liquid effluent; and generating raw materials and products reusable by society.
IP 0803036-7 “Process for the Treatment of Solid Waste Based on Reactor having Plasma Technology”, presents a traditional configuration of the assembly arrangement consisting of: combustor (furnace, combustion chamber and reactor or burner), post-combustor, gas treatment and exhaustion (chimney). However, this process is distinguished from the others by its original features, the most important being the employment of reactor having the claimed plasma technology.
The above documents anticipate systems/equipment of substantial size, even when comparing plasma models, and in the first two mentioned, which work with combustion, there is excessive generation of gases, which explains the large dimensions and high investment in the not always effective filtration system.